Thefuture.fm Refocuses On DJ Curated Net Radio, Announces New Hires

Thefuture.fm today officially announced recent additions to its team. The web radio startup featuring dj mixtapes added industry veterans Michael Wenzel as chief development officer, Nic Luciano as chief technology officer and Chris Nagy as senior vice president of marketing and sales. This news comes as Thefuture.fm also seems to be emphasizing the web radio aspect of their streaming dj-curated mixtapes.

When I spoke with Thefuture.fm CEO Dave Stein back in March, the focus on being web radio was not so strong. Though their music was licensed under non-interactive web radio guidelines, Thefuture.fm was more a home for legal dj-curated mixtapes than a collection of dj-curated radio shows.

Today, in an official statement, Stein said "I am confident we are fast on our way to achieving our goals to build a disruptive internet radio platform and have a profound effect on the music industry." Given their podcasting format, identifying more strongly as web radio may make more sense to advertisers and even to listeners.

Thefuture.fm is re-focusing its identity as it announces three recent hires:

"Responsible for the architecture and development of the company’s website, and developing API for use with website, mobile and third-party integration. Previously he was lead frontend developer at YouTube, where he worked on a team responsible for the overall design and architecture of the video page and reviewed a majority of the frontend code for the YouTube website."

"Oversee the company’s branding, marketing and sales initiatives. He comes to Thefuture.fm from CLN Ventures, a start-up consulting firm he founded in 2008 advising companies including Grooveshark, Burton and Karmaloop. Nagy also launched an in-house advertising and media buying agency for Interscope, Geffen, A&M Records, and then went on to the newly formed Universal Music Group, where he was supervisor of advertising, marketing and media services."

"Formerly the lead web developer at GetGlue, where he created and lead development of the GetGlue.com website. He will be responsible for managing the front-end development team in their creation of mobile apps and third-party widgets, while managing technical relations with partners and investors. Nic will also play a key role in the ongoing progression of MixSCAN, Thefuture.fm’s proprietary fingerprinting and rights flow-management technology."

I was most surprised to see Chris Nagy's work as Frank151 left out of the announcement but, then again, he's got quite the resume. Thefuture.fm also stated they passed a million mix plays and have over 8000 djs involved.